Sneak peak: Mr Wigg

Apologies for not been very active this last week, I haven’t been reading very much apart from Wide Sargasso Sea, which was thought-provoking and complex was a little disjointed and hard to get through. I finished it today and have moved onto Mr Wigg (by Inga Simpson), which is the pick of the month for my local book club.

I am enjoying it so far and was so impressed with the first few pages I thought I should post a sneak peak up here.

Synopsis

A novel that celebrates the small things in life by a fresh Australian voice.

It’s the summer of 1971, not far from the stone-fruit capital of New South Wales, where Mr Wigg lives on what is left of his family farm. Mrs Wigg has been gone a few years now and he thinks about her every day. He misses his daughter, too, and wonders when he’ll see her again.

He spends his time working in the orchard, cooking and preserving his produce and, when it’s on, watching the cricket. It’s a full life. Things are changing though, with Australia and England playing a one-day match, and his new neighbours planting grapes for wine. His son is on at him to move into town but Mr Wigg has his fruit trees and his chooks to look after. His grandchildren visit often: to cook, eat and hear his stories. And there’s a special project he has to finish …

It’s a lot of work for an old man with shaking hands, but he’ll give it a go, as he always has.

Excerpt

Mr Wigg had squandered his life. That’s what his so thought. Probably others thought it, too, and maybe they were right. He was neither wealthy nor famous, and the great swathe of property his family once owned had been split up between brothers and sons. He was alone now, which people thought was sad, but he was too old to remarry and lacked the heart.

He leaned on the front verandah railing while the sun came up over the hill, washing everything pink. A moment of tenderness before the heat began to build. Birdsong rushed to fill the space the night left behind. The way Mr Wigg saw it, he’d had a pretty good life: built a home, raised a family. Young folk, who haven’t lived through a war, are slow to learn there’s more to it all than tearing round and round the paddocks trying to make money.